The Ways of the Force
by TheOneAndOnlySlayer
Summary: After The Force Awakens, Rey is sent by the Resistance to find the legendary Luke Skywalker. Luke has come to the planet Ach-to to die, imprisoned by his failures. Little does this broken man know that this girl is the answer to his last calling. Can be treated as a prequel to the "I Need A Teacher" universe.


**The Ways of the Force**

CHAPTER 1

 **Ach-to, Day 1, Midday**

Rey feels wet.

The atmosphere of this planet is thick, and salty, yet _clean_. Of course the air will feel as wet as the sea down below. There is so, so much of it, as much as the desert back…on Jakku. She almost said _home_.

She's so, so far away from that place now that the tether she had always answered to waves hopelessly in the air, terribly slack and empty of its need to return. It makes Rey nervous and guilty. But she can't go back. She's been thrust forward, only forward, the way to her past snapped shut.

Just like Finn. Finn, the Stormtrooper runaway, who faced more danger than she did, who almost died. Her friend.

No; her tether now is the feet on the ground, whatever ground – whatever _planet_ – that is.

There are words that hover on her tongue, separate from her desert-dwelling nature: moist – damp – mist – fog – rain – downpour – waves – tide. She'll know them, just as in the past few days she's seen, and felt, green growth that glowed as she greedily absorbed it from the _Falcon_ 's viewport; the comforting rumble of a ship's engines that played down to an automatic, breathing purr in hyperspace; the numbingly beautiful chill of snow.

Things seem to process through her tenfold, like her brain, her body, has all woken up. And moments later, she faces him, the man of stories, of battles, of magic: Luke Skywalker.

 _Holy kark. Holy kark it's Luke Skywalker – he's looking at me._

The man is a shadow, a relic of his old self, much like the Star Destroyers in the Graveyard the first time Rey was brought to them as a child. She was awed and apprehensive when she first clapped eyes on them – massive, incomparable, unfairly silvered by some unspoken defeat, but still had teeth. Luke Skywalker, the Last Jedi, is the same.

Rey finds she can't speak. The only thing she knows what to do, to announce her presence, is to take out the lightsaber. His lightsaber.

That thing that speaks to her – the Force, she knows this now – whispers its approval, its blessing as Rey holds it out. This is the weapon that saved her life. She's immeasurably grateful for it, as much as she has been for the way Finn barreled into her life.

Luke Skywalker, though, flares at the sight of it. He must recognize it. Her skin prickles as the Force tells her he's…he's reacting to it. It's trepidation. This is a sign. Or maybe she's just nervous at how his eyes, the most blazing blue she's seen, widen.

For a while, neither move. It's a standoff. General Organa, her pack of advisors, the pilot Poe Dameron, all parted words with her with absurd excitement in getting to find Luke Skywalker, _the_ Luke Skywalker.

Her first mission for the Resistance, and something tells her it's not going the way she thought.

 _Go to him. Don't be afraid._

She closes the distance. The sun wants to eclipse him, and she's already intimidated. "Hi. Are you Luke Skywalker?"

He doesn't answer. He looks at the saber in her hand, which Rey hesitantly retracts.

She doesn't understand. Doesn't he want it back? _Kylo Ren_ had stared at this thing in her hand like she had taken out the bloody sun.

And then she remembers what Leia had told her. She held it, and put it down like it burned. "This first belonged to Luke. Before, though, it belonged to our real father - Anakin Skywalker." That was all she said.

"Where did you get that?"

He spoke. He croaked like he hadn't expected to speak in years. Deflecting, Rey announces, "Your sister sent me. The Resistance."

"I'll ask you one more time." Luke growls in warning. Rey takes a step back; Luke Skywalker is swathed in shadows as well as light. She blinks, letting the momentary panic of goosebumps settle down.

Rey does not know yet, but in his later adulthood Luke has indeed come to terms with the darkness inherited from his father. He had struggled with it for years. But, in his self-exile, like many disgraced Jedi before his time, he's had time to reflect. He's learned to carry it. He does not let it rule him.

Rey decides on the truth. "I grabbed it from Kylo Ren."

"Give it to me."

Eyeing the man's mechanical arm, Rey does so quickly. Throwing meat at a predator. And she watches. She watches this moment. She's no one. She wasn't meant to call the lightsaber to her hand, but she did it anyway. It fought alongside her like it was her staff. What will it do in the hands of its long-lost owner?

Ssssssss

He's recognized it _immediately_.

Luke is fifty-three years old and hasn't touched his own green saber in a year. He hadn't used it in combat in nearly ten. He has become the closest to the Jedi way, like Obi-Wan, like Yoda, whom in his younger years, Luke never imagined he'd mimic, broken down and made simple by the natural land around him. His joints ache from hiking throughout the island, a cragged molar-shape, and underneath his leathery, sinewy skin…well, it's tough to admit, but even on Ach-to with its minimal offerings of nourishment, he thinks he's gotten fat.

This girl comes at him out of nowhere. A scrap of a thing, all tough angles and a stubborn, honest, hopeful look aimed right at him, eyes as big and shiny as stars. Luke is reminded of the porgs.

He senses nothing unnatural about her. So she's from the Resistance. Yet he knows. He knows in the way he happened to be where Old Ben Kenobi found him unconscious with two well-kept droids. The pieces have fallen into place in front of him, and they wait and see for him to pick them up.

First order of business is to get that saber out of her hands.

She holds it up to him with bated breath as if this is all part of some ceremony. Luke forgets the girl is there. Without a word, he walks right past her.

"Sir - Master Skywalker - !" she falters, fumbling for the title he had cast away. After a moment, she catches up and continues to babble. "Sir, please, there's a lot I have to tell you. I'm with the Resistance. _Leia's_ sent me to tell you that – a _lot's_ happened. Their Starkiller Base has fallen, and the war's starting to turn to our side – please!"

When he doesn't react at his sister's name (though he snorts internally at the name _Starkiller_ Base, how ironic), she gives up with a huff. She then declares, throwing in her last card: "I have the Force!"

Luke stops, turns around. Inspects her. Well. If he is able to channel _his_ first encounter with Master Yoda, he imagines the silence he builds up pins her in place.

"You do, do you?" He looks up at the heavens, imagining the cosmic forces of the universe concentrating on Luke's turn of fate. "Anything to get my attention," he says to himself.

The girl's shoulders slump, her youth betraying her impatience as she goes from hopeful to hopeless. Still, she hides it well. He can't help but be intrigued.

No. Intrigue will only get him in trouble. He ought to growl and send this scrapper on her way. She shouldn't even be here – no one should! Why hasn't he yelled at her? He ought to be more like _Han_ in order to get people to leave him alone.

But his sister's finally found him. Leia. Leia should be here. No – that wouldn't be a good idea, either.

Pressed from his internal debate, he decides he'd rather be back at the huts to deal with her.

"My shelter's this way. Come with me."

ssssss

Rey follows with relief. At least something's happening.

Halfway down (after too many minutes of silence, and the wind and the mist around them), Luke Skywalker speaks to her again to say, "You'll have to forgive me. It's been a while. I don't get any visitors."

It's as much of an apology as she can expect. Rey doesn't have much experience with them, anyway. And the tingling in her spine reminds her of her past life, where she had nothing but the land around her, too. She was ruder to Beebee-Ate when she took him under _her_ wing.

 _I understand_ , Rey wants to say. But it's already too late; words fail her for the strangeness of following Luke Skywalker down the winding stone steps.

They reach the huts. "Grab some wood, in that shed," he instructs. "I have some smoked fish, and tea."

Fish. What is that? But she keeps her mouth shut and focuses on her task. Once they get a fire going in another hut, Luke surprises her by getting up and beginning to close the door on her.

"Stay here," he tells her, just as Rey forces down a rush of panic. "I'll be back in a few hours. I think."

Her hazy, swelling mind catches up with her finally, and she realizes she doesn't want to be left alone. _Again_.

She shoots up from her seat. "Wait, where are you going?"

"To meditate. I'd rather not have distractions. Please stay here."

Normally she would balk and follow him anyway. But he's a Jedi. She shouldn't. "A-alright."

She realizes in this space of his that Rey has no idea what exactly a Jedi does every day. Surely everyone speculates about these legendary warriors' habits. She supposes waiting for Jedi to do their thinking business is normal. But none of this is normal; this is Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master. Is he going to consult Jedi gods or sommat?

Then after a few seconds, he comes back, brow furrowed at her. "What's your name?"

Rey is surprised. She didn't tell him. "Rey."

"Rey…" Luke tests the name on his tongue. As if he intends to say it more, see her more. This gives Rey hope.

His blue eyes call for her attention. "I need you to be patient with me. This…the last time I saw this," he gestures to the saber, "was when…when I was your age. I need to seek the answers to questions you won't be able to answer yourself. I'll come back, I promise."

Rey blinks. Luke has no idea what that sentiment means to her. "I'll be here."

Sssssss

Luke is on his way to the Force tree when he sees her: the _Falcon_. He has to blink harshly to believe it. The island, his island, is being assaulted by innocent relics of his past.

The girl had to have been brought here somehow. But _how did - ?_

There's only two people who would have rightfully possessed that Coreillian freighter. Guilt, his familiar affliction, flares at once: are Han and Chewie hiding in there? Did they send a nondescript rebel to ascend the island, because they are unable to face him?

Luke swallows his apprehension and goes down. When he reaches the ship, he's about to press his hand against the battered hull, but there's a thunderous set of steps.

It's Chewie. Chewie comes down the ramp.

"Chewie!" Luke gasps, feeling the cavernous gap in his heart swell together.

Chewie's posture – he's _aged_ – is bent and exhausted, defeated. Much like his own; Luke recognizes it. But then something else begins to make the great beast crumble.

" _Luke…brother_ ," Chewbacca lows. Pack-brother, he used to call Luke.

The Wookie turns into a pile of fresh, tearing grief. Just as he reaches Luke, he collapses to his knees and wails, gripping Luke around the waist. The big alien's head just brushes Luke's chin.

The smell of Chewie's fur tears Luke's numbed senses back into his memories. He knows this smell, home, and family, and danger.

Luke stares ahead, shocked and perplexed at the reaction. This is nothing how Luke had fathomed greeting Chewie again. Nothing has ever made him sink in such an undignified manner. Unless you count how he gazed across the ruined, smoking Praxeum, dozens of slaughtered Jedi learners.

But where's Han? Oh. Oh, no. Where's Han? _Where's Han._

Luke is short-circuiting, a storm cloud of white and red, behind his eyes. He finds ( _Brother, Han, my friend_ ) he cannot breathe.

"No," he nearly barks by mistake, startled at his own breaking voice. "Han?"

The stitches of his life's memories tighten, holding him down: his friend, his war-brother, his sister's husband, the father of his favorite boy: his gruff, sardonic quips, his stupid, punch-me, I-screwed-up smile; his deep eyes of miserable, sleepless adventures, of painful battles with cowardice and greed; his burred, delightfully stubborn, roguish spirit; his soft, tamed glow that only fatherhood could have caused for a lost soul like his.

The truth writhes within him before Chewie breaks away, fangs pale against his pitiful, broken wail. " _Han is…gone!_ " His proud head once again bows into the chest of Luke Skywalker, Empire Breaker and Grand Master of the Jedi.

In this moment, as his body betrays him and forces his way through Luke's shields, the sea and moss-covered cliffs become grimy and ever-damp. His woolen robes cling to him, as if to pull and shrink him down to the earth. Chewie's fur-clad scent, of loyalty and stout-hearted strength, nearly strike him mute.

And then he turns to the _Falcon_. The old stodgy junktrap was an all honored warbird and a mothering nest for thieves. Luke spent weeks in the main bunk sleeping, sitting in the sweat-leather seats in the cockpit, staring death in the eye and chasing it down. His time on the _Falcon_ went hand-in-hand with his coming to grips with his destiny. In all the roiling confusion of his heritage, understanding what his Skywalker name truly, truly meant – the _Falcon_ was solid and held fast to him.

It now stares him down, a phantom, a massive wraith. _Abandoned_ , it echoes. _You abandoned us._

 _Control your sentiments. Put yourself together, take care of Chewie._

He manages to get Chewie to his feet, and tries even harder to shoulder the shaking Wookie up the ramp and to the seat in the lounge room.

Ignoring the need to re-familiarize the interior lounge, see if anything's different, Luke sets a task. "Where's that brandy you keep back here?"

He's set Chewie down on a box-crate as the Wookie mumbles directions. Luke's vision blurs for a moment. He wipes errant tears away while he swallows down some salty, tumor-like ache in his throat.

 _Han. Oh, Han, not you._

There's a few bottles. Luke hopes they'll need only one, mostly for Chewie.

"Now. Tell me. How…" Luke knows this now, knows it in the rippling space between him and his old, gruff, affectionate friend. "How…what happened?"

Chewie regards the brandy carefully. The he holds back a crippling sob and takes several gulps before launching into a stunted recount.

The _Falcon_ had been recovered by two human pups and a droid. The boy was a Stormtrooper who had defected, the droid apparently carrying parts of a map to Luke's location. The girl, Rey, was a scavenger caught in it all.

Han took them to Maz's castle at Takodana, get them on their way to the Resistance, but the First Order had found them and laid siege.

Luke holds his breath for what Chewie said next: Kylo Ren was there. It takes all of his will not to whimper in shame at that demonic moniker that possesses his dear nephew. Chewie may be exacting the same effort in choosing which words to say next.

" _He…he's tall. He's so tall, brother. And dark. And he covers his face with that mask, as you say_."

A tingling that does not even belong to the Force, so base in its instinct, bursts across Luke's skin. He recalls the sheer hatred spilling out of Ben's mouth during one of their final encounters, his tender features warped into something wicked and awful. The things he howled, how much he hated Luke, how his mother betrayed their legacy…how Han Solo, as Ben sneered with contempt, had no place in the Skywalker family at all except to be wiped from it.

And suddenly Luke is afraid to _know_ what happened to Han. But he has no choice but to wait out the agony.

Kylo Ren captured Rey, thinking she had seen the map, and left the destruction to burn away. The Resistance had arrived, with Leia, and amidst all this the First Order had built a Death-Star-like weapon the size of a planet, and the Hosnian system was gone. All gone.

There was a plan, of course, to blow it up. Han, Chewie, and the former Stormtrooper went to disarm one of the security stations. And Kylo Ren was there.

Chewie had known something was wrong when Han left his comlink on. Up in the catwalk, Chewie heard everything, armed with his crossbow and arrested at a father's plea to his son.

" _And he said…he said, 'I am being torn apart.' That he wants to be_ free _of this pain_ ," Chewie recalled haltingly.

"No," Luke finds himself protesting. Pain that he's buried long ago finds its spark. It rises from the underbelly of his heart. "Tell me he didn't kill Han."

" _Ben did it_ ," Chewie squeaks out. The one name is taboo, after so many years. It sucks out the last warmth in the room. It causes both men to tremor, to deny it. " _It was Ben. He killed his father_."

Ssssssss

Luke Skywalker's life is besieged with traumas. When he was nineteen, his aunt and uncle were murdered by Stormtroopers. He found their charred skeletons in the wreckage of his home. At twenty-three he found out the man who killed his father, Darth Vader, _was_ his father. It left him empty. He did not even know who he himself was anymore.

And then, thankfully, mercifully, he learned about his sister, Leia; Leia who was so strong and true and unbeatable. She was his _sister_. Luke had been the one to reach out to her, tethering his spirit to her in relief and joy. Because he wasn't alone anymore, no longer adrift.

And then, the birth of his nephew: Ben, Little Ben eradicated all the harsh wounds of the war like a newborn star in a desolate sky. He was their hope for peace, the aftermath of the war they all needed, the symbol of a new beginning.

The war, though, had never been over. Not for the Dark. It had found its victory, in Ben's innocence, and in Luke's negligence. His weakness. Leia's and Han's son – everyone's son – was gone. Something had taken their boy, their sweet, kind, brave, wonderful child, and planted a monster inside of him.

It was never supposed to be this way. It is the cruelest fate the galaxy could have given them.

For fifteen years, on this island, Luke has tried to make his peace with it. He has tried to find both reasons and punishment for his mistakes. Because it is his fault – Ben's loss and Kylo Ren's creation is his fault. Fifteen years, and he thinks maybe he didn't _have_ to come to Ach-to to die. But this….

This grief goes further in than tears and howls. It rocks him off his axis, unseats him until he's hurled down a chasm and unable to breathe. And…he should have expected this. They _joked_ about it enough, Han dying just a little past his prime, enough for him to go mostly gray. He continued to live a dangerous life. He had cheated and stolen from thousands of cutthroats, thieves, traders, even honest folk. He had escaped prison sentences, executions, fatal wounds, and humiliated those in Leia's social-elite circles. Among those enemies, Han Solo deserved to die. But not…not by his own son.

It is beyond sickening, a most unfair hand of fate. Han loved Ben, possibly even more than he loved Leia. Luke had known this, the connections of the Force laid bare before him, and in all his observation in the Force, Han looking upon his son, from his first cry to the horribly awkward adolescent interactions, to reluctant tears as Han left for jobs…their love was tender, and protective, and hypersensitive.

In between Chewie's broken yowling, Luke's head swims. The black cloud ensnares his heart, so that only ugly thoughts channel through. _All your fault. All your fault. All your fault._

And of course it is. It's not even unreasonable, or due to regret from the past. All of what Chewie told him points to how he started the news: they wanted the droid to find _Luke_.

So. Ben…Kylo…still wants to kill him.

" _My friend…"_

Luke doesn't hear Chewie. He's _angry_ : at Ben's inability to see reason, at his blind panic, insecurities, and Luke's own misled grief choices. Anger and self-hate swirl in him. But he puts it away.

Luke is silent. "He's been…looking for me. He's still looking for me." _I should have let him. It could have quelled his rage._

" _I thought he would come back…that he'd come with us_." Chewie admits. His regret and shock waver enough for Luke to feel it, face contorting in gruesome emotion. " _I shot him. I shot that boy! When Han fell."_

Luke takes one look at Chewie's haunted face and goes to him. What else can he do? He's cost his family so much.

Wrapping himself around Chewie's arms, Luke bends his own head and accepts the cries into him. A reverse exorcism, a version of sin-eating, of tears and loss.

Finally, Luke says, with tears of his own: "I will never _dare_ ask for your forgiveness. I am not myself. I…that should have been me, not…I have cost us so much."

Sssssss

Luke and Chewie stay in that space for a long time. Too thrown in the shock and grief over Han's death, Luke sits, struck dumb, awed at where he never thought he'd be again.

Has it been more than ten years? The _Falcon_ was once his home, where his life began again as he said goodbye to the humble, forgotten moisture farmer life on Tatooine. The iron, burnt blaster smelting settles in his bones.

The betrayal of Ben's actions still sting. It lingers. He imagines….three-year-old Ben's high-pitched squeal when both father and uncle barreled through the _Falcon_ to chase him. Eight-year-old Ben had sought Threepio's help to decorate the main cabin with streamers and holobeams, the lounge table covered with an Alderaanian tablecloth and a candlelit dinner: a setup to trick Leia and Han into softening after their most recent fight, asking each other's forgiveness and to coo back into each other's arms. Adolescent Ben cooled down and hunkered in the bunk to read books, grumpily and carelessly carrying a conversation with an errant Han through one-word answers. Teenage Ben would go straight to the cockpit, shoulders wide and firm with responsibility as Han instructed on messier pointers for dogfights, and how to protect his crew.

"How could he be wrapped in so much hatred," he mutters to himself. "Is this what…what my father was like."

He's asked this question before. A thousand times, in general curiosity: his poor, tormented father. It's _pointless_ asking this again, when Han and Leia vehemently opposed Vader's very existence in their family. Chewie's presence, however, has evened out just enough to become a stoic source of strength again. "I pushed him to Snoke. I should've – "

" _He hated –_ " Chewie croaks. " _He was angry at Han before you. He saw you and Leia as those who could understand his struggle better. Han…we will say the same things we said about him before._ "

Luke shrugs in admonishment. He and Chewie often chatted so much about Han and Leia's parenting that it felt like they were conspiring.

" _Why didn't you know? Leia's grief…"_

Luke swallows. Oh, _Leia_ ….

"… _Wouldn't you have known_?"

Luke looks away. Then looks back in Chewie's eyes. "I've cut myself off from the Force."

Chewie's glazed eyes begin to sharpen.

"Snoke…Ben could sense me," Luke hurriedly explains. "I – "

Chewie stumbles to his feet a far degree less faster than normal, thanks to the brandy. He nevertheless tumbles his way over to Luke's throat.

" _You – you cut your sister away! We thought you were lost!"_

Caught by plate-sized, clenching paws, Luke chokes out, "H-he kills – wherever – I go!"

" _He kills no matter what!"_ Chewie breaks out.

They hold each other at a standoff, breaths fuming furiously until there's no point. Their boy had left them both broken. Chewie tosses his grip on Luke away and withdraws heavily. " _Well, you better start using it now. That girl's got it. She needs a teacher_."

Luke's head shoots up, eyes bright with protest. At the mention of that girl, the one he left in his hut, the spell is broken. He finds it as welcoming as cold sea-spray.

"You mean that new recruit of Leia's?" he snorts bitterly. "She's no Jedi disciple. She's a potential spark for the Resistance. She's some _punk_. She'll have no idea what she's getting into." He soothes what may later turn into bruises along his neck, then adds irritably, "Called Leia a _general_."

" _She's enough to go against Ben_ ," Chewie affirms, too loudly from the drinking. " _One Jedi is enough to go against an Empire. And_ you're _probably out of practice_."

The barb is immature, a testament to Chewie's sensitive side. Luke is half-driven to hit him to show he most certainly isn't.

He feels terrible. He wants to crawl into a hole (or, back into his hole) and die. Maybe really die. Hasn't he sworn he would do it one day? One less Skywalker to poison the galaxy.

But it gets better. " _Leia's recorded a message for you_ ," says Chewie, almost pitifully. Seconds later, Luke's heart lifts and then breaks at the sound of Artoo's chirps and hoots.

Sssssss

"Hi, Luke."

Luke goes tender at the sight and sound of her. His sister's voice has changed. It sounds rough, rough from…crying, from screaming. Like she'll always sound like she woke up the morning after a fight. Yet she still sounds so kriffing regal.

 _Why couldn't_ I _have been sent to Alderaan_ , he once joked to Han, who had cracked up for days.

"It's me," Leia continues, eyes half-cast low, unsure how to speak to Luke even in a recording. "I've made this recording about…twenty times, previously. I changed this one with Artoo because – Well, a lot's happened. I've learned, though, that…with Ben: I understand. I said some things I shouldn't have, and – we all failed him."

Luke's breath catches.

"We were all too proud to admit it. And we may not be able to fix it." She shakes her head. "I don't know what to do. I'm fighting a war against my son…and the monster who corrupted him. My heart is breaking and I don't know how to do this. He's after the both of us now."

Leia's blue image becomes clearer as she opens her eyes and seems to stare right into him. "I need you to hold my hand. I need you to tell me things will be all right, even if I don't believe you. I need my brother back. _I don't have anyone else_."

She looks away. Luke is amazed and disheartened to see she doesn't cry, even through the blurry hologram. But she does compose herself before she continues. "There's something else. There's a girl, named Rey. She's Force-sensitive, and according to her, she's beaten Ben, in single combat. There's enough of what we know of…Anakin…about her. She's stronger than she knows. And she needs a teacher. I think she's our answer. Be patient with her.

"Right. Well. That's all I should say here, I think. I know it'll take some time. I trust Rey. Please let me know…that you'll come back. I love you, Luke."

And just like that, his sister's gone.

Enclosed in the main cabin, Luke keeps his gaze to the floor. Chewie has given space and sits across from him. He's softened after attacking Luke and now watches the Jedi sort his thoughts.

All Luke wants to do, is bury further into the island. His soul claws through is heart, throat and eyes to be let out and grieve again. But it's so exhausting and takes so much effort, until breathing is no longer secondhand. He doesn't think he has the strength to let that tide toss him and wash him out onto shore again to pick himself up.

Return to Leia. Join the Resistance. Train the girl. Show her how to defeat the Dark Side. Show her how to destroy Ben.

No. Leave him in peace. Go home.

Suddenly, sitting seems dull, and so unlike him. He used to have so much energy, pent up and buzzing. With so many opposing forces surrounding him, Luke finds he must appear busy. This is his old self, where people looked to him for answers. It's all too much, considering he has so many questions himself.

He decides on the most harmless, the most insignificant. "What is she like?" he croaks.

Chewie blinks, confused. "The girl," Luke reminds him.

" _Rey? She speaks Shyriiwook_." He preens at Luke's hum of appreciation. " _A bright one, smart and sharp. Piloted the_ Falcon _off Jakku after it had been grounded for eight years. She jumped into the copilot seat and landed one of Han's tricks like they were two of a kind. Yanked out the compressor out of nowhere! Poor Han was baffled, it was like she's pulled his hair out."_

Luke can't believe it; he's let out a snort at the sight of 'poor Han' and his bewildered, "I'm trying to be mad" expression. It's a precious one to those who know him well. He has a hard time imagining this girl he's just met getting under Han's skin in such a way.

" _Yeah, she's something_ ," Chewie agrees. " _Knew she was special."_ The Wookie looks down at his new brandy bottle _. "I…I had half a mind to look for those kids before Starkiller turned to dust. The Stormtrooper….Ben had found him, boy was unconscious,_ " Chewie dismisses with a hesitant sniff. " _But she…was so shaken. Held that lightsaber. She could barely tell me she fought him off._

" _She told Leia…_ he _talked to her. Said he could show her_."

At this, Luke's eyes sharpen. "Show her what?"

Chewie shrugs carefully. " _The ways of the Force_."

Luke makes a point to look away, knowing his eyes are bugging out of his head. Well, that's interesting.

"And Leia's response to this was to send her to me as soon as possible."

Chewie isn't much for speculating Jedi business. He just shrugs as he usually does. But now Luke is sorted into another direction. It's a blessing, really, keeping him from imagining Han's last moments of life.

Of course there are still Force-sensitives out there. Luke knew about that, even though those he had trained had perished. This girl had stumbled her way into some adventure, all right. The whole thing was an echo of his own past, plucked from Tatooine and en route to a dangerous mission.

He feels a headache coming on. He hasn't eaten in hours. He wonders how long since his guest has eaten.

"I left her back in my hut," he tells Chewie sheepishly.

The Wookie gestures his muddled carelessness with another bottle of Coreillian brandy. " _Go get her, then_."


End file.
